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CBD Metro will run almost empty

Linton Besser

THE CBD Metro will run as much as 87 per cent empty during the height of the morning rush hour when it opens in 2015, the Transport Minister, David Campbell, has conceded.

Although the $5.3 billion metro between Central Station and Rozelle will have a capacity of 30,000 passengers an hour, as few as 4000 to 5500 passengers will use it, the Government estimates.

That means the equivalent of 26 of the 30 trains running each hour in the peak will be empty. Off-peak passenger loads are likely to be half again.

By contrast, 27,650 passengers travel along CityRail's western corridor to the city in the one-hour morning peak, which includes services from the west, inner-west and northern lines.

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The figures, supplied by Mr Campbell's office, show most CBD Metro trains will be empty for decades. By 2031, just 7250 people an hour will travel on the CBD Metro in each direction according to the Government's forecast, which means it would be operating 76 per cent empty at the busiest time of day.

The Government has maintained the short metro line is to become the "spine" of a future network of metros that will carry far more people.

"Whilst the CBD Metro will have an important role creating new transport connections through the CBD, the long-term vision is for the Metro to be the spine of a greater metro network spanning first to the west and then out into other areas of Sydney," Mr Campbell said. "This would substantially increase the usage of the CBD Metro."

But the dismal patronage forecast raises serious questions about why the Government is forging ahead with the project, undertaking geo-technical investigations and preparing construction and operation contracts that will carry prohibitive breach-of-contract provisions.

The alternative rail plan, pledged by the former premier Bob Carr in 2005, included a second CityRail line through the city between Redfern and Chatswood at a similar cost, but which would have carried 16,000 passengers an hour - four times as many as the proposed metro.

The projected patronage is so low that Sydney Metro Authority officials are considering extending the CBD Metro from Central to Broadway and Camperdown, where Parramatta Road buses could be forced to terminate, to boost passenger numbers.

Mr Campbell said that there is "the ability to extend the CBD Metro to the west and also north-west, should funding be available in the future".

The metro, which was announced by the Premier, Nathan Rees, before any feasibility studies, was predicated on a plan to terminate up to 26 western suburbs trains an hour at Central Station's country platforms.

Last month the Herald revealed that the Metro Authority had withdrawn this plan during discussions with Infrastructure Australia because the Commonwealth body pointed out that terminating so many trains so quickly at Central was virtually impossible.

But a similar warning has also been issued, the Herald has learned, by the State Government's own bureaucrats.

Advice composed in the past few months from RailCorp has warned the head of RailCorp, Rob Mason, that there are serious flaws in the plan.

Not only are the Central Station changes impossible without enormously expensive capital works, but such a plan would also require millions of dollars to be spent on overhauls of CityRail junctions at Strathfield and Blacktown, the advice warned.

Paul Rea, a RailCorp spokesman, said: "RailCorp is developing options for cabinet consideration on the rail infrastructure plan for the next 30 years. We will not comment on any material that is yet to be considered by cabinet."